“Wind knows neither North nor South. Neither East nor West. It moves freely across territories, indifferent to the categories that divide them,” Amine El Gotaibi says. The Moroccan artist positions nature’s apathy toward national boundaries as an entry point for unraveling the forces that shape our perceptions and memories of a place.

El Gotaibi’s most recent body of work is on view this month at Southern Guild. Presented in an exhibition titled Wind From the North, a suite of sculptures made of metal and wool speak to the tensions between the land and the state and the ways we mark change. Many of the works emerge from panels of copper or steel weathered to reveal the oxidized patinas only possible with time. Affixed to these aged backdrops are tufts of beige and rust-colored fibers, which are either wound into tightly knotted tufts or left free-flowing.

Echoing the undulating terrain of mountains and the countryside, the cascading fibers tether to the artist’s interest in examining the landscapes of his home country and Northern Africa, more broadly. Wool is significant in the highlands, as textile production is one of the oldest craft traditions in this part of the continent. For El Gotaibi, this material significance directly links to his desire to challenge the idea that Africa’s cultural contributions are most likely to emerge from the central and south.

Instead, Wind from the North, an exhibition statement says, “extends this proposition beyond fixed coordinates, imagining geography as porous and interconnected, shaped as much by what passes through it as by the lines drawn around it.”

Wind From the North is on view through January 9 in New York. Find more from El Gotaibi on Instagram.